


wild mountain thyme

by a_static_world



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Getting Together, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Ish?? - Freeform, M/M, Oxenfurt Academy (The Witcher), POV Jaskier | Dandelion, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Professor Jaskier | Dandelion, Time Skips, Whump, because they deserve it, wild mountain thyme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27296191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_static_world/pseuds/a_static_world
Summary: Jaskier’s standing on that mountain top. He’s staring at Geralt, a numb, uneasy feeling washing through his veins. It’s happened, he thinks. All of his fears come to pass: that he’s more trouble than he’s worth, that all of his efforts to blend seamlessly into Geralt’s life have failed. He’s failed.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 27
Kudos: 377





	wild mountain thyme

**Author's Note:**

> i recommend listening to [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go6v6R5pD7A) while reading, but make sure to listen with headphones for the full impact!

Jaskier’s standing on that mountain top. He’s staring at Geralt, a numb, uneasy feeling washing through his veins.  _ It’s happened _ , he thinks. All of his fears come to pass: that he’s more trouble than he’s worth, that all of his efforts to blend seamlessly into Geralt’s life have failed.  _ He’s  _ failed. He hasn’t stitched enough wounds, sung enough songs, earned enough coin. Distantly, he realizes that this is a strange, savage mockery of a fucking  _ breakup _ , and it shakes him enough that he blinks, throws out a goodbye that’s a great deal less blase than he would’ve liked, and starts down the mountain.

He makes it halfway before night falls. As the sun sets he kneels, crushing heather blossoms into his silk pants. He’s still numb, shaken by the fact that Geralt had known  _ exactly _ what to say to get him to leave. The scent of heather and wild mountain thyme cradle him as he shakes, eventually soothing him enough to sleep. When he wakes, he pulls a bundle, tying it with a leather strap he usually carries for Geralt’s hair. Jaskier’s a songwriter, a collector of memories. It would be a sin should he forget this particular instant. 

As soon as he can, he uses the rest of his coin to buy passage to Oxenfurt. He’s an alumnus, and a rather famous one at that. It isn’t hard to sweet-talk his way into a teaching position. Introductory Songwriting, but it’ll do him just fine. The pay is good, and they’re rooming and feeding him for free. After twenty-some years on the road, it’s precisely what he needs.  _ Stability _ . Some part of him bucks at the word, desperate for blistered feet and undercooked rabbit. He shoves it back, hanging the bundle of thyme and heather over his bed. It serves as a reminder and a strange sort of aromatherapy. Since the mountain, he can’t seem to sleep without it.

His first semester consists of complete and utter chaos. Freshers, who have clearly never heard a good bard in their short lives, combine with upperclassmen desperately trying to graduate in an eclectic mesh of idiocy and spilled ink. And the absolute  _ shittiest _ lyrics he’s ever heard. Nearly worse than Valdo Marx, and that’s fucking saying something. A year passes in a whirlwind, and he hasn’t picked up a pen unless it’s to grade papers. In all honesty, he forgets  _ he’s  _ a fucking songwriter. 

As students and teachers begin to peel off for the summer months, however, Jaskier feels the icy fingers of memory begin to prod at his heart. He decides to spend the summer traveling, seeing as much of the Continent as he can. Places he didn’t get to see...before.

Somehow, he ends up back at the mountain.  _ The _ mountain. He’s not really sure if it has a name, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to go up it. So he doesn’t, because his life is his now. Jaskier spends a day at the foot, braiding crowns for the wild goats and himself out of the summer mountain flowers. He lies back in the grass and eats his lunch, soft cheese and hard bread and a middling apple. He makes a wreath of thyme and heather, and carefully lays it in the saddlebag of the horse he borrowed from Oxenfurt. Another memory made, and with it the ache in his chest lessens slightly.

Predictably, this becomes a routine. He stays on at Oxenfurt through the spring, teaching his classes through the chaos. In the summer he travels, enjoying the troubadours and hospitalities each village has to offer. He always ends up back at his mountain. Each year he weaves something different with the thyme and heather: wreaths, baskets, even a hat, one year. Jaskier sings as he weaves, snippets about the herbs he uses, always the same half-formed song. He carries his creations back to Oxenfurt in the autumn, the sweet, light scent permeating his chambers year after year. With each craft, the vice around his chest lessens, until one year he kneels in the thyme and sobs, soaking the ground with his grief and finally,  _ finally _ letting it all go. He finishes his song that winter, calls it  _ Wild Mountain Thyme _ . 

After five years, he stops giving himself whiplash at the sight of silver hair. He no longer waits for an impatient clatter of hooves in the cobbled courtyard, nor the musky, slightly oniony smell of witcher in his rooms. He’s proud of himself when a student finally asks if he’s  _ that _ Jaskier, and he answers them without a quake in his voice. It is, of course, after these five years, that Fate decides to dump Geralt of Rivia on his doorstep.

Literally.

He’s woken in the middle of the night to a cold room, a dying fire, and rather insistent banging on his door. It’s the dead of winter, when under and upperclassmen alike begin to feel the strains of containment, and like to pull pranks on the professors. Frowning, Jaskier throws on his robe, tying it as the knocking grows more frantic. He registers that it’s devoid of the usual juvenile giggling the second before he opens it to see…

Melitele  _ fucking _ above.

It’s Geralt, alarmingly pale and propped between two of the burlier teachers. One of them - MacLean, maybe? - grimaces. Jaskier’s already waving them in, and MacLean explains as they settle Geralt on his bed.

“Sorry, Jaskier. ‘E was taking a contract and it went sideways, apparently. They couldn’t heal ‘im in the village, so they brought ‘im ‘ere. ‘E must’ve...I dunno, known you were ‘ere? Anyway, ‘e started thrashing somethin’ awful, screamin’ your name an’ whatnot.”

Jaskier’s hands are moving faster than his brain, unbuckling the witcher’s bulky leathers and throwing them to the side as he probes for a wound. His brain catches up, though, and MacLean’s words hit him like a wagon of lead. 

“That’s - shit. Thank you, both. If you’d be so kind as to send in Madam du Maurier?” 

His hands resume their roaming as the men nod and leave, presumably to go wake the resident healer. Jaskier’s done a lot, but as he peels back Geralt’s (unfortunately sticky) undershirt, he knows the gash along his ribs is about as far out of his depth as it can get. For starters, it’s  _ green _ , and either Geralt forgot his potions existed or he collapsed before he could get to them. Jaskier strides across the room to his basin, figuring washing the wound is the best place to start.

He winces as the frigid water runs over his fingers, glancing at the fire wistfully.  _ One thing at a time, Jaskier.  _ Wound first, fire second. He pauses, takes a second to breathe over the bowl of water, just...centering himself. This is about the farthest thing from his new normal and, well. It’s not gentle. Geralt stirs in the bed, moaning something that might be  _ Jaskier _ , and it’s frightening how weak his voice sounds.

The witcher doesn’t even stir when Jaskier presses the freezing cloth to his side, patting and rinsing until the green starts to come away and the wound starts to bleed again. He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. So he keeps compressing, changing out the water once, twice, until his jug is empty and the bleeding is only sluggish. 

Madam du Maurier, thankfully, shows up only a few minutes after the water runs out. Clearly MacLean didn’t do the gravity of the situation justice, because she bustles into the room with all the frigid chill of the night clinging to her like a fog. As soon as she sees the cloth, wound, and panic on Jaskier’s face, however, she snaps into healer mode.

“What’s in his bag?”

Jaskier lunges for the bag as the matron takes his spot. 

“Four vials: chartreuse, amaranth, hyacinth, cornflower,”  _ Green, pink, purple, blue _ , to anyone else, but specificity is key here. A single shade’s difference and Geralt could end up six feet under. “Erm, a roll of bandages, a knife, a dried buttercup.”

Du Maurier thinks, furrowing her brow as she prods the wound. 

“Pour half of amaranth into cornflower and mix it. Bring me the bandages, too.”

Jaskier does as he’s told, fingers somehow steady. He tips the mixture down Geralt’s throat at the healer’s prompt, and resigns himself to anxiously sitting in the corner as she works. A fragment of his song weaves its way into his head.  _ If my true love, he were gone, I would surely find another, to pull wild mountain thyme, all among the blooming heather. _ But Geralt isn’t going to die. Jaskier hasn’t gotten the chance to forgive him. 

“He’s not going to die. He’s strong, but this could’ve killed him. Keep him quiet and fed and he’ll be fine in a month or two.”

Jaskier sags in his chair.  _ Fine. He’ll be fine _ . He thanks the Madam profusely, apologizing for waking her before shutting the door and shaking. He tends to the fire, keeping his back to the slumbering witcher for as long as he can. Once the fire is appropriately high and he can no longer delay, he turns back to the bed. 

Two amber eyes stare back at him, and Jaskier shudders. He’d hoped Geralt would be sleeping, if only to delay the inevitable for a little while longer. He crosses the room on bare feet, occupying the chair the healer had drawn up beside the bed. Silently, he grabs Geralt’s hand, sweeping a thumb over all-too-familiar calluses. 

“Thought I was done saving your ass,” Jaskier tries. Geralt doesn’t speak, but there’s a guilt in his eyes that suggests he’s been beating himself bloody over what he’d said for the past five years. 

“Oh, hush. I forgive you, you great brute, obviously. Though I’ll say, it will cause  _ quite _ the scandal when MacLean lets slip that I’ve got a witcher in my bed.”

Geralt only  _ hmm _ s, but Jaskier can tell from years of experience that he’s amused. They eventually fall asleep, joined at the hand like they were always meant to end up this way. 

It takes Geralt until the spring to heal all the way, and Jaskier’s shocked by how...content he seems. He takes over the job of groom, tending to the horses at Oxenfurt with all the care and attention they could want. When the summer comes, Jaskier takes him on his pilgrimage. Geralt’s eyes widen when he realizes where they’re going, but Jaskier is unperturbed. He needs to know.

Geralt’s tense that day, shoulders bunched up as Jaskier settles them at the base of his mountain. Jaskier guides his hands as they weave a garland of the flowers, Jaskier singing softly as Geralt begins to relax. He demonstrates the right way to pull the mountain thyme, how to roll the heather flowers between your fingers so that the scent lingers. And honestly, it’s only right that Geralt kisses him here. 

A bard and his witcher, kissing in the wild mountain thyme like teenagers as the sun sets behind the mountain. It’ll be dark soon, but they don’t care. They’ve waited too long for this. 

**Author's Note:**

> ohhhh my god. i absolutely sobbed listening to this song today   
> i also made [oddconstellation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoddconstellationofthoughts) listen to it AND teased them w this so uh good morning mars!  
> i always love to connect with y'all on [tumblr](https://astaticworld.tumblr.com/), so swing on by and say hi anytime!  
> much <3 and happy halloween/samhain/saint's day/dia de los muertos! be safe and wear your masks!  
> static


End file.
